1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to printing systems and methods, and especially methods and systems for improving the performance of workflow in a production environment, such as a transaction printing environment. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to systems and methods for jointly assigning structural parameters and scheduling parameters to a workflow, such as a print job, in order to improve the performance of the workflow production environment.
2. Background
A transaction printing environment is typically a high-volume document production entity that produces documents associated with financial transactions such as checks, invoices, statements and the like from a data stream for businesses. Typically, the data printed on each document (or set of documents) in a transaction printing environment varies significantly. For example, the data on a first document might pertain to a first credit card user for a credit institution, while the data on a second document might pertain to a second credit card user for the credit institution. This is in contrast to a printing environment, such as for book printing, where several identical documents are produced and finished consecutively.
Typically, transaction printing environments are organized into departments. For example, a transaction printing environment could include a data processing department (including computers and associated peripherals) for processing data and creating production jobs; a printing department including continuous feed printers and/or cut-sheet printers; an inserting department including a variety of inserters, such as check inserters, multiple tower inserters and flat inserters; a rework and/or hand-inserting department to sort mail pieces eligible for postal discounts; a shipping department for mailing completed documents; and a warehouse department that stores and replenishes forms, paper and the like. The warehouse department may also prepare and deliver paper, rolls, inserts and/or other materials to the production floor. Additional support departments may include a technical services department, a customer service department and the like.
A conventional transaction print workflow is depicted in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, incoming data pertaining to a job is processed 105 to determine the operations to be performed. The data is then printed 110 using, for example, a continuous feed printer. A continuous feed printer includes a roll of paper including pre-printed forms. As such, paper is continuously fed into the printer resulting in high speed printing. In a typical transaction print operation, data corresponding to a plurality of recipients is printed 110 on the forms.
One or more of folding 115, inserting 100 and sorting 125 operations can be performed based on the requirements of the transaction print job. For a folding operation 115, each printed form can be folded according to the transaction print job requirements. Ancillary documents can be inserted 120 into the print job. For example an advertisement for a service provided by a bank might be inserted into a bank statement print job, A sorting operation 125 could be used to sort the documents into individual document groups for each recipient. Each document group can then be nailed 130 to the appropriate recipient.
Job types in a transaction printing environment typically include one of the following, production flows:
Simplex Print→(Hand/Machine) Insert→Sort→Mail
Duplex Print→(Hand/Machine) Insert→Sort→Mail
Micr-Duplex Print→(Hand/Machine) Insert→Sort→Mail
While print volume (number of forms printed) often varies substantially between print jobs, all jobs typically go through approximately the same production work flow. However, very small jobs, such as jobs requiring less than 100 forms, would likely be printed on a cut-sheet desktop printer and hand-inserted because the time to perform the set up for such jobs on large continuous feed printers and inserters would not be economical.
Methods exist for improving the operation of a traditional transaction printing environment. One method involves re-conceptualizing a traditional transaction printing environment as a type of factory process. In such a method, the transaction printing environment is considered to be synonymous with a factory plant, and each print job is considered to be synonymous with a manufactured product. In this manner, commonly known factory flow processes can be adapted to the transaction printing environment and used to improve the flow of print jobs through the transaction printing environment.
In accordance with another method, a transaction printing environment may be reorganized into autonomous cells as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,079,266 to Rai et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety. An autonomous cell is a group of resources used to process jobs of at least one type. A resource is a device configured to process at least a portion of one or more jobs. In a transaction printing environment, a resource can include a printer, a copier, a binder, a hole-punch, a collator, a scaler, an inserter or other equipment used to perform an operation on a document. Autonomous cells group equipment ova together according to different job types commonly encountered within a specific transaction printing environment. The jobs can then be sub-divided into smaller sub-jobs and processed through the autonomous cells.
Another method to improve operation is to cross-train operators on multiple pieces of equipment. Operators can then be allocated more flexibly as needed throughout the shop. Opportunities also exist to improve scheduling of jobs so as to reduce the amount of inventory and to more fully utilize equipment.
An additional option is to improve the layout of equipment in the transaction printing environment in order to decrease the amount of excess movement required within the environment. These methods have been shown to reduce the cost of operating all classes of transaction printing environments by up to twenty percent within six months of initial implementation.
Although such methods for operational improvement exist, print shop owners are understandably slow to change their methods of operations. The resistance of print shop owners to change might occur because implementing such change can be quite invasive. For example, implementing operational improvements can require retraining operators, moving heavy equipment, and learning new processes, each of which equates to down time and lost productivity for the shop during transition. This lost productivity is problematic for a shop owner who must keep the shop operating smoothly throughout a transition period. As such, a print shop owner has little incentive to make operational changes without having quantitative data showing a positive benefit to bottom-line profits. It is therefore problematic that print shop owners typically have insufficient data to quantify the extent of possible gains available to them by implementing, improved operational methods.